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for allowing me to use his excellent transfers. You can find this and many other wonderful selections and information at his website: http://www.damians78s.co.uk Norman Houston O'Neill (14 March 1875, London -- 3 March 1934, London) was an Irish and British composer and conductor who specialized largely in works for the theatre. He studied in London with Arthur Somervell and with Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt from 1893-1897. His studies there were facilitated by his lover, Eric Stenbock. He belonged to the Frankfurt Group, a circle of composers who studied at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s. O'Neill was associated with the Haymarket Theatre. His works include over fifty sets of incidental music for plays, including many by Shakespeare (Hamlet, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V and Measure for Measure), J. M. Barrie (A Kiss for Cinderella), and Maurice Maeterlinck (The Blue Bird). In 1910, he became the first British composer to conduct his own orchestral music on record, directing the Columbia Graphophone Company's house ensemble, the "Court Symphony Orchestra", in a suite taken from his Blue Bird music on two double-sided gramophone discs. He received personal congratulations from Sir Edward Elgar on his music for the innovative central ballet sequence of the 1924 revue "The Punch Bowl", which ran for over a year with O'Neill's contribution being widely singled out for praise in press coverage. O'Neill's works also include a number of symphonic suites and chamber music. He was treasurer of the Royal Philharmonic Society from 1918 until his death, and taught harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. Norman Houston O'Neill was the youngest son of the Irish painter George Bernard O'Neill (q.v.) and Emma Stuart Callcott, and was born in Kensington, London. He married Adine Berthe Maria Ruckert (born 29 July 1875, died 17 February 1947) on 2 July 1899 in Paris, France. Adine was a celebrated pianist and music teacher in her own right. When he died in 1934 he was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, London, as was Adine on her death in 1947. There is a plaque there in memory to both of them. Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (also called Comte (Count) Maeterlinck from 1932; French pronunciation: [mo.ʁis ma.tɛʁ.lɛ̃ːk] in Belgium, [mɛ.teʁ.lɛ̃ːk] in France; 29 August 1862 -- 6 May 1949) was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life. His plays form an important part of the Symbolist movement. In 1906, Maeterlinck and Leblanc moved to a villa in Grasse. He spent his hours meditating and walking. As he emotionally pulled away from Leblanc, he entered a state of depression. Diagnosed with neurasthenia, he rented the Benedictine Abbey of St. Wandrille in Normandy to help him relax. By renting the abbey he rescued it from the desecration of being sold and used as a chemical factory and thus he received a blessing from the Pope. Leblanc would often walk around in the dress of an abbess; he would wear roller skates as he moved about the house. During this time, he wrote his essay "The Intelligence of Flowers" (1906), in which he expressed sympathy with socialist ideas. He donated money to many workers' unions and socialist groups. At this time he conceived his greatest contemporary success: the fairy play The Blue Bird (1908, but largely written in 1906). After the writing "The Intelligence of Flowers", he suffered from a period of depression and writer's block. Although he recovered from this after a year or two, he was never so inventive as a writer again. His later plays, such as Marie-Victoire (1907) and Mary Magdalene (1910), provided with lead roles for Leblanc, were notably inferior to their predecessors, and sometimes merely repeat an earlier formula. Leblanc, clearly, was no longer an inspiration to the playwright. Even though alfresco performances of some of his plays at St. Wandrille had been successful, Maeterlinck felt that he was losing his privacy. The death of his mother on 11 June 1910 added to his depression. In 1910 he met the 18-year-old actress Renée Dahon during a rehearsal of The Blue Bird. She became his lighthearted companion. Winning the Nobel Prize for Literature also served to lighten his spirits. By 1913, he was more openly socialist and sided with the Belgian trade unions against the Catholic party during a strike. He began to study mysticism and lambasted the Catholic Church in his essays for misconstruing the history of the universe. By a decree of 26 January 1914, his opera omnia were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the Roman Catholic Church.